Japan-France Foreign Ministers' Telephone Talks

January 17, 2013
Japanese

On January 17, Mr. Fumio Kishida, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan, had telephone talks with H.E. Mr. Laurent Fabius, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the French Republic, for about 15 minutes from 5:30 P.M. (Japan Time) concerning the hostage of Japanese nationals in Algeria. The overview of the talks is as follows.

Minister Kishida stated that the Japanese Government is deeply concerned upon receiving information that many foreign nationals, including Japanese citizens, were taken as hostages at a natural gas plant in Algeria on January 16. He stressed that such an act was absolutely unforgivable. He also explained the content of his telephone talks with the foreign ministers of Algeria, Norway, and the United Kingdom about this incident.
In response, Minister Fabius said that he completely agreed with Minister Kishida, expressed his feeling of heartfelt solidarity with the Japanese hostages and Japanese Government, and said that as this kind of act could not be forgiven there was a need for the international community to continue to respond to the incident as one. He also said that France would spare no effort for cooperation, including providing information to Japan toward the resolution of this incident.
In addition, the two Ministers shared the recognition that the utmost priority should be placed on human life and that close collaboration between France and Japan would continue.

(* The foregoing is a provisional translation. The date indicated above denotes the date of issue of the original press release in Japanese.)

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